1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus, a screen displaying method, and a user interface that allow transitions between a shooting mode and a reproducing mode to smoothly take place.
2. Background Art
Digital cameras that have a displaying device for example an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) with a relatively large screen have been widespread. When an object is shot, the LCD is used to set a composition, an angle of view, and so forth. In addition, when a recorded image is reproduced, the LCD is used to display the reproduced image.
An electronic camera that can shoot moving images and still images and that can display them in the order of days, months, and years of which they were shot along a time axis is described in the specification of Japanese Patent No. 303324. The digital camera described in the document displays captured images so that they can be easily searched for an image to be reproduced.
The conventional digital camera needed an operation of an input device to switch a mode between a shooting mode and a reproducing mode. As a result, since the shooting mode and the reproducing mode were separated, for example it was difficult for the user to shoot an image while checking an image that has been just captured. It is preferred that a user interface of a digital camera be predictable and intuitional by a plurality of users. It can be said that such an interface has an affinity with a user's conceptual model. The electronic camera described in the specification of Japanese Patent No. 3403324 deals with only images that were captured. Thus, the specification does not mention an image captured in the shooting mode. The specification does not mention that modes are switched having an affinity with the user's conceptual model.
In addition, when a recorded image needed to be deleted, after the shooting mode was switched to the reproducing mode, the recorded image needed to be deleted. Thus, the operability of the digital camera was not good.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an imaging apparatus, a screen displaying method, and a user interface that allow a shooting mode and a reproducing mode to be switched having an affinity with a seamless conceptual model and thereby their operability to be improved.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an imaging apparatus, a screen displaying method, and a user interface that allow a shooting mode and a reproducing mode to co-exist and thereby their operability to be improved.